Muawiyah Hamza Al Sallak. A man not like other men and a story not like other stories. I met him in hospital, I had lost a eye and he had lost a ear. He stormed into my room and introduced himself, he was very outspoken very loud and very bubbly. We clicked instantly

Every day he would come down to my room and we’d talk and talk till late. Many times our conversations were the only conversations I’ve had all day. They numbed the pain and gave me comfort. We got really close, as I was paralyzed he took care of me.

He would cloth me, wash me, feed me, empty my catheter bag etc etc. I’ve never heard him once complain. I lashed out at him many times due to being frustrated and never did he ever treat me badly. He was patient, kind, comforting, generous, polite, respectful.

He was basically everything good and beautiful about a human put in to one person. Words could never do him justice. We spoke about our dreams, our hopes our wishes and what we wanted to accomplish. He wanted to finish studying and go traveling.

But like everything beautiful in life, it comes to an end. He went back to Benghazi before me and we promised to meet there. I joined him after finishing my recovery. In Benghazi we we shared a room and I will never forget

That room. We agreed that in this room we will not talk about the war that was going on outside of it. We wouldn’t bring weapons in to this room, we wouldn’t speak about death or about the horrors we were seeing every day. We set up a tv in that room and a PlayStation

It was our little bit of peace, our escape from our horrific reality. After a long day of bombardment, death and hunger that room was the light in the dark. We continued to speak about our hopes and dreams. What we wanted to do when this war was over

I could go on forever. But every book has an ending. And every soul has its destined time. On that dark we prayed Duhur and Asr together. Then we went our separate ways. When the Adhaan for Maghrib was sounding, I was covering his body with dirt in his grave.

I’ll always remember that last look at his beautiful face as I threw the last bit of dirt to cover it. He left me with a heartache that isn’t curable with the passing of time. May Allah rest his soul and may I meet him again in a life with no evil, no evil and no death

Muawiyah Hamza Al Sallak died in Benghazi on 15/06/2015, shot by a 12.7 bullet to his abdomen. Peace upon your soul. Muawiyah’s elder brother Mohammed died in the 2011 war and his younger brother Suhaib died 2 years after him. His 2 cousins Saleh & Khalid also died after him.